- An all Black audience is far less polite
and an all white audience is far less enthused.
- More often than not a lot of Black rooms aren't,
you know, like traditional comedy clubs.
It's like you planted a bar.
♪ Bring it back ♪
- [Man] They might've came here
'cause it was $5 Margarita's,
ladies was free,
and oh yeah, there's gonna be a comedy show.
- TV's on, a game is on, the bartender's hot,
titties is out.
They distracted, but the women is like,
let's go.
I worked all day today,
I'm ready to motherfucking laugh, bitch.
You ain't cute. Go.
- I want to ask you guys a question.
You ever go see a horror movie
that's like about a creepy kid.
Like the kid is haunted.
Like little kid is possessed, little kid like, "Ugh."
Like that kid?
Is it just me, or is that kid never Black?
(audience laughs)
Never. But here's the thing, I think I know why.
'Cause a Black mom would beat that out immediately,
like you know what I mean, like.
If that were me in my house being like,
"Redrum,
redrum, redrum."
My mom would be like,
"Where was that base during choir practice?
You want get up in front of people and act shady,
you'll sing like that there."
Like, I don't even think a Black mom would be scared.
Like she'd come home,
everything's floating all "Poltergeist" style
and she's like, "Okay.
Okay, so you can make everything float,
but you can't clean that room?
You can't clean that room? No.
I'm gonna be in there five minutes,
we'll see who's haunted, okay?"
Unless you kill in front of Black people,
you've never really killed in your life
because Black people will stand up.
Like they'll actually stand up.
They'll laugh so hard, they leave.
Like, they'll be like, "Ah, that's enough!"
And then just leave.
- If I pay $100 to see you,
I think I got every right to run up and down the aisle
if you say some real slick that I enjoy.
It's exuberance, man.
We're exuberant people.
Everything that we do usually has a lot of,
it has a lot of us coming out.
It's a lot of soul in it.
- I think that might come from the Black church.
So sometimes like,
like if I do like Black rooms or whatever,
I can say, "Hey, you ever been in a situation where
this happened to you," you know,
"you ever had your girl have a bad dream
and she wakes up and is mad at you?"
And that might be the start of a joke.
That same type of presentation,
I think, comes from the Black church.
"You ever been down and out?
You ever had a bad night in your life
and you want to have a good day?
All you need is Jesus."
And people respond.
It's that same type of feel.
It's that same type of rhythm.
- You guys tell me if this ever happened to you,
like you be in the bed, right?
And you're with your girl and you're sleeping
and all of a sudden it'll be like, boom, "Ow!"
And she be like,
"I just had a dream where you was sleeping
with another woman." (audience laughs)
And you be like,
"So?"
She be like, "Explain yourself!"
(audience laughs)
- How do I perform in front certain audiences?
Some audiences I look out and I'm like, okay
this is my congregation.
We going somewhere.
Other audiences, I'm like, I am the odd man out.
So I'm telling my story, ride with me if you want to.
- When I first started, it was situation where like, yeah,
and even in the mainstream rooms I would hear,
"He could do Black night, but can he do white night?"
White night pretty much was like mainstream night.
And when I first started doing the white night,
I had a tough time because I thought that
they were all looking at me as if I was a Black comic.
So all my jokes were like Black people,
white people do something different.
Black people do this. White people do that.
And then one of my friends, a good friend of mine,
Tony Woods, he told me, he said,
"Donnell, when you go on stage, guess what?
Everyone knows you're Black.
So you don't necessarily have
to wear your Blackness on stage.
Just be authentic, be original.
And then people appreciate you."
(upbeat music)